Prayer Warriors

In the final stages of the health care debate, we turn our attention to all the techniques of Advocacy 101. The USCCB has encouraged all parishes to publish in their bulletins a call for all Catholics to contact their Congressional representatives, to urge them to ensure that human life is respected in the health care bill. Our bishops are being asked to contact key legislators, to let them know of our concerns. Our professional lobbyists are working long hard hours behind the scenes to advance our concerns.

At the same time, we all must turn to the ultimate weapon — prayer.

Across the nation, people are lifting their minds and hearts to God, asking Him to guide our nation along the right path. Religious communities and seminarians are fasting, praying, and spending time in Eucharistic adoration. We are imploring Our Blessed Mother to intercede for our nation, that the hearts of our elected officials will be converted, and that we will be saved from the expansion of abortion and euthanasia.

Many years ago, John Cardinal O’Connor, looked out at the deplorable situation in the United States, where unborn lives are vulnerable to abortion at any time, for any reason. He called to mind the words of Our Lord, that some demons can only be case out by prayer and fasting (Mk 9:29). Cardinal O’Connor understood the fundamental truth that Our Lord was speaking to our time — that abortion cannot ultimately be fought by political means alone, but all our efforts must be rooted in personal prayer and sacrifice.

That insight led Cardinal O’Connor to found the Sisters of Life, but it has also led to the continual re-vitalization of the pro-life movement. Even as so many of us devote our efforts to the public square, we all realize that the spiritual battle is by far the most important, and that the most effective and productive efforts in our movement are the ones that are so counter to conventional wisdom — they are the efforts of prayer and fasting.

And so, initiatives like the “40 Days for Life”, which involves people in prayerful witness outside of abortion clinics, has saved thousands of life, and has excited the intense hostility of the forces of the Culture of Death. Here in our own city, the First Saturday of every month has a Witness for Life in front of the Planned Parenthood clinic in lower Manhattan.

And in convents, seminaries and private homes around our nation, prayer warriors are engaged in the real struggle. They realize, as St. Paul did, that

“we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 9:16)

So, my friends, let us pray, and let us fast.

This entry was posted
on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Elections, Prayer, Pro-Life, Sisters of Life.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.